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Tuesday, August 5, 2008

MY FAVORITE-MARGAZHI POOVE

MARGHAZHI POOVE- MAY MADHAM

The song I am going to describe now is my all time favorite song.

This is one song that is very close to my heart. Initially I decided to review another popular A.R.Rahman number but finally settled to what my heart said. Yes…. People may wonder about the speciality of this song. Yes this song was more popular in 1994 when it topped the charts. But still May Madham had more beautiful numbers like En Mael Vizhundha and Minnale…Those were great numbers but it was Marghazhi Poove which stole my heart and still stays fresh whenever I hear it.

The movie came out in the year 1994 and was directed by Mani Ratnam’s assistant Venus Balu. As usual, expectations were sky high as Rahman churned out hit after hit. Hits became a formality, as most of Rahman’s movies were chartbusters. Only a few failed to fare well in the Box Office. I started to pester my father to buy me a May Madham cassette. But he never bought the cassette and I had to resort to my old radio.

Coming to the song it has a brilliant prelude to start with a tweeting sound of a bird followed by beautiful beats set in a loop and then followed by flute playing the basic tune with a PAD music kind of setting in the background.. Rahman shows his brilliance here by mixing the right sounds-a right mix of synthesized bells, jazz guitar and even a santoor kind of sound in the back ground. Shoba Shankar very well rendered the song and she being classically trained helped her cause. This song made me mad about keyboards and I even went to few of my friends searching for that “tweeting chirping” sound. Incidentally I found that green little bird in my garden…Hmmm...Now sparrows are no where. :( She sang few songs after that but couldn’t match her debut song.

Marghazhi Poove is based on raga Hindholam and the interludes in this song are brilliant. Rahman has this peculiar habit of handling things differently. He broke the traditional song structure and devised his own. For classical raga based songs he used mridangam/tavil( Rahman’s favorite) extensively (whereas the maestro used tabla to great extent) and in the interludes one can find the synthesized tabla/jalandharangam sounds accompanying the beats. Incidentally Rahman uses dholaks for Hindustani based songs.

Again this song has an Enigma connection- may be Rahman would have been inspired by the “enigmatic sounds” in “The Child in Us” from the album Enigma 3: Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!... Rahman has taken a cue from Enigma’s prelude and had extended his imagination to weave an effective one in his own inimitable style.

Moreover the song is heavily inspired from our own Suprapadham and lyrics deserve a special mention here. It describes a rich girl’s desire to break her shackles and be free in this world enjoying every moment in her life. She wants to lead a simple life and enjoy the happiness that each and every simple girl enjoys. This is not an extraordinary song but for reasons unknown this has a soothing effect in my heart and I hear whenever I feel low. Beautiful lyrics, mundane in a few places but still catchy…The postlude also deserves a special praise when the scales changes.May Madham is inspired from the Oscar winning classic Roman Holiday (starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepbum), which I would recommend you all to see.The lyrics are as follows: